Welcome to another episode of Sweat Equity.

We're in LA.

It's sunny in 75.

It is beautiful out today.

If you got the wide angle, you're seeing the sun and the crazy

tide, but we got JT Barnett today.

huge to have you here.

One, I feel like two, three years ago, I was starting to consume your content.

You explained essentially what you just told us, like.

You got to tell your story.

You got to put short form, or video content out there, et cetera.

But give us the 30 second background.

Cause we like to keep that part short and just get straight kind

of into the tactical aspects of, of marketing content, et cetera.

But give me

the, give me the background.

It's always like, I feel like I freeze up when people are like, what do you do?

Cause I'm like, how, what are the like things that people need to know?

Yeah.

I was a pro hockey player, loved making content while I was playing

hockey, got out of it, started doing content as a career, trying to be an

influencer in health and wellness.

That took me to working with some brands.

What I realized was actually really just love how to create content

and like the business of content.

And a lot of the brands that I was working with had no idea what to do.

They didn't know what influencers were, how to work with people.

But I started doing that, that really worked for me.

And that became what I wanted to like actually build a business around.

So now I have a consulting firm.

We'd go and teach brands how to make content.

We teach them how to work with talent.

and then through that, I didn't really realize.

Most brands, even some that want to do it, don't have the people

on their team to be able to do it.

Yeah.

So I was like, maybe I could start talking about this in my content of, is

there any creators that want to go and work for companies and actually like.

Run their account or be part of the team making content consistently.

So we started a headhunting firm.

So those are the two things I do.

Consulting and headhunting.

And then my other like passion is really just talking about all of it.

Yeah.

In my content like you guys have seen.

Yeah, let's start there.

So you built the first TikTok house in 2020 during the pandemic.

Essentially get 10 creators and you start what is like a MTV real world, right?

Mhm.

That whole thing pops off, you get a million followers, or it gets a million

followers in, I think it's 60 days, right?

Then you kind of have this other lightbulb moment when Poppy reaches out to you.

And Poppy's, you know, asking you to consult them, and they have a

video pop off with their founder.

All of a sudden, it drives more sales than Shark Tank, right?

And this kind of leads into your prediction of 2024 that you think

these brands need to essentially build creative, internal creative teams to

help them get, to essentially help them fast track their relevance and culture.

Once you're building an internal team, like what is that step, though, from

just build because a lot of people talk at the surface level, like

you need to build an internal team.

Once you have the internal team and you're there, it's like, well, what's next?

How do you get, how do you get a brand to be relevant in culture after

that?

Dude, I think it's different for everybody because It's it.

The way that I look at it is like, first, who are you making the content for?

And then really it's like, what's the infrastructure to do that?

Some companies, the founder is super creative, wants to be making content,

wants to be involved in everything.

And it's like, I know how to do this.

I just don't have the time.

Other companies are like, I literally want nothing to do with the content.

I just want to oversee the product.

I want to oversee the operations and like, I need soup to nuts, like everything.

Yeah.

So I think it depends on the brand.

The way that I look at it though, is like.

Everybody wants to do everything fast and because of these algorithms,

because of short form, because of the opportunity, most people are

trying to do something super quick.

And the way that I look at it is like, it needs to be a long term play.

It needs to be looked at as a long term play from the onset of how

do we build this holistically?

How do we build this holistically to be able to do this for a year or two years?

Because most companies don't have success that quick.

I was lucky with Poppy.

And I, I like using Poppy as an example, because Poppy is like,

you know, the success was there.

But like with Honey House, we posted like a hundred videos.

Before we had any traction, it was like literally like throwing things at

the wall, throwing things at the wall.

And if I hadn't built the infrastructure of like, you need to

come up with, these are the things that I like talking about more.

You need to come up with a series.

You need to come up with multiple of them.

You need to know who you're talking to.

You need to actually care about that person.

You need to have the people around you to be able to film and edit and all of that.

If those things aren't there, even if you have a moment like Poppy did,

you won't be able to follow it up.

And what I, what I would like to talk about more about Poppy

isn't that moment that they had.

It's actually what they've done for the last three years after that.

Yeah.

That they like, they built infrastructure around it to have more moments like

that and more moments like that.

They had a ton of sales on that day, but like that didn't get

them to where they are right now.

Yeah.

Like it was the, the learnings that they took from that and they were like, oh,

what did we do to, for this to happen?

And now let's like continue implementing this.

That's what I think people actually need to do today.

You see it with, you know, they're still relevant on, on socials with that.

They, you saw the sleepy girl mocktail thing.

I'm assuming like that is such an example of playing into culture

while still integrating your product.

Like it's, it's a seamless execution where poppy is kind of an afterthought

in that, like it's a cultural moment of.

Like, okay, you want to get sleepy, like, you know, you're not sure about

like, you don't want to take melatonin to take like certain other things.

And then poppies just kind of integrated into it seamlessly.

Yeah.

Dude, I think you need people that are of the culture.

Yes.

And I think like I was I made a video the day about like Mr.

Beast going from YouTube to TikTok.

He wasn't like, I'm going to read an analysis of.

What somebody put out on a report and I'm going to go and do that.

He was like, I want to find TikTokers that are legit and

I'm going to have them consult.

Yeah.

And actually teach us what we should be doing and go and be with the

people that are of the culture.

And so same with Duolingo.

Yeah.

Duolingo did not go and read a report and like just go and make

videos based off the report.

They hired this girl named Zaria who was literally a Gen Z creator who

understood the culture of TikTok and was like, this is what we need to do.

So I think if you want to be part of the culture, you have

to be actually of the culture.

And that's one of the ways that I'm like, that's how you actually

build sustainability into it.

What did Poppy do

operationally to be able to scale it instead of, okay,

you have this one time kind of success is one thing that pops off.

It's that data point.

They're like, okay, we need to do more of this.

But now kind of what's next on, on scaling those operations and making

sure it's efficient that I feel like in our world with performance marketing,

we're like, okay, do we put more money here or into meta and tick tock?

How do you get it to the level where organic can compete with meta and tick

tock?

The thing that they did is they have a founder that put

content almost over everything.

So she was like, this is the needs to be literally the most important thing for us.

So however we orient our team around this.

On the tasks of the day, that's like number one or two, that's always up there.

So my sister was working for Poppy at the time, so my sister was filming content.

we were working with Allison, so we were giving Allison scripts so that she

would go and film content every day.

And then the back end of that was like, what are the series

that we're coming up with?

And how do we make a couple of them like really quick and easy, so it's

not too much of an undertaking?

But then also come up with a couple that might be a little bit harder to make.

But not need to do those every single day, just so that they're putting some,

they're putting out valuable pieces and consistency, but it's not like too

taxing on the team for it to be like, we're going to, we're going to burn out

and we're not gonna be able to do this.

So I think it's, yeah, I think it's like, this is why I think

it's hard for people to do.

You have to understand as like how a creator works.

You can't force creativity.

You can't push people into the ground with creative.

It has to be something that is like it ebbs and flows.

You need to build it, you need to have people that can support with ideas.

Yeah.

'cause one person can't be relying on every idea forever.

Yeah.

So I just think it's, dude, it's, I look at it the same way as I look at personal

training where it's like when you're trying to build in the world of content,

it's like you can't go zero to 100.

And the same way when you're in a gym, get have to, if you've been working out

before you, if you go into a gym and you put three 50 on a bench press, you're

gonna, you're gonna be done in a day.

Yeah.

You know, you need to like actually have.

You need to, you start slow, you start with consistency, you get

the little wins and you celebrate them like they're big things.

And then you just consistently do that.

You start taking on more and more and more and then the machine starts rolling.

I'm really curious how, so you're, you're matching creators with

brands and I'd love to like hear more about that selection process and like

how you vet creators and match them.

Because in our last episode with Jordan, like we talked a lot about.

The most important thing they look for in celebrity partnerships is actually

understanding the athlete because they have to amplify the athlete for the

athlete to be able to amplify Nike.

So with OBJ, you know, they knew he was passionate about fashion and soccer.

So they took him to Paris Fashion Week and linked him up with Ronaldo.

And from there on out, Odell was like, die hard, like, I'll do

whatever I got to do for Nike.

And I'm just curious, like, do you look for people, like a creator?

Say you're matching them with someone like Poppy or someone like Elwood, for example.

Like, do you look for someone with a passion in streetwear?

And like, do they have those overlaps?

It's two different

kinds of things.

So the one thing is like external partnerships that are like influencers

and creators and talent that are posting on their own account.

And then it's like internal people that are actually

creating content for the brand.

So it's two completely different ways to look at it.

Externally, I think you have to think about how is this actually

beneficial to the creator?

Yeah.

Like to the talent that we're working with, if it's an influencer that rocks

Ellwood, it's like, if we want this to be a partnership, we need to like actually

be doing something that they care about.

So we need to spend time with them.

That's different for everybody.

Some people might be like, I just want money.

I just want to get paid for this.

Other people might be like, I really actually want to spend

time and help out with the product development, give you feedback.

I would like to be part of community events.

I would like to be, it's just like it's relationships.

It really is like, how do we actually do something that they would find valuable?

And.

And then we can give them this and it become a collaboration because

I know on the other side of that as a creator, if I work with a brand

and they're like, here's our budget.

Here's the outline of the video.

Go film it.

Send us this back.

We'll give you a revision and then we'll send you the money.

I'm like, bro, I want to, like, this is transactional.

Yeah.

This doesn't feel good for me.

Then it doesn't feel good for my audience because then they know

that it's just a paid thing.

Right.

And so it's not good for the brand either.

So I think the talent side is really like, how do you get a human being

to, to understand who's relevant in culture that has audiences that are

aligned with you and your values.

And then how do they build relationships and like really, really build

relationships with people, which is what Poppy's done a great job of.

How do we actually build relationships, invite them to things, care about

them, comment on their content.

and that's the way that I think talent partnerships work the best.

Any questions on that?

I

think, I'm curious, like how much support you give after the placement.

Do you kind of give like a SOP?

So placement is internal.

Okay.

Talent partnerships.

We're not necessarily like placing anybody.

We're making introductions of like, these are people you can work with, but

because it's, it can be like a one off, like they could just do a one off deal.

It's less of like.

This needs to be like a real internal member of the team.

the second half of it is like, when we're looking for somebody that's

actually part of the team, we have to understand the culture of the team.

We have to understand what do you really look, what do you

actually look at for success?

Some companies are like, I want this person to be just making videos.

I don't care if they mesh with our team.

I don't even care if they're in the office, just make us a couple

of videos with our product and that'll be good enough for us.

Other people are like, which I think is a better model.

We want this person to be integrated with our team, understand, understand our

mission, understand our brand, understand the content we want to make, learn with

us as we go and tell all of those stories.

That person is a lot harder to, is a lot more of like, we need to

spend time, like understanding this, because that's not only like a talent

fit, that's a culture fit as well.

That role, I think is really crucial to brands, especially if you're a content,

if you're a team that doesn't know how to make content and doesn't have a person

already, but I think it's harder to find.

And I think that there's a lot of creators, like this is

something we would run into.

We would place a creator, they'd be right for talent, they'd be right for culture,

but after like three or four months, they would be like, I know how to do this.

I want to do this on my own and go and try and be an influencer

and like run this myself.

So I think it's really like you, it's understanding incentives.

It's under, it's a lot more of a human element, which is, why we have to

spend a lot of time in the culture.

Is there a

testing process to see if, if a creator is the right fit versus not

and dumping them, right?

We let them make content samples.

Like we make them do sample content.

they get on meetings with the brand.

There's a 90 day window if this creator doesn't stay, they'll find

you another one, like all that.

I think for me, it's just so early.

It's still, it's a really early thing, like most companies

haven't been doing this.

They've been outsourcing it to agencies.

So I think it's just a newer thing that we're still like, In the, at the

forefront of seeing, Oh, actually like it looks like 20 percent of the creators

actually do end up going and wanting to be influencers or a lot of these creators

that were influencers can't make money.

So it's actually a great place for us to go and find them a lot of new stuff.

I'm honestly super curious, like how you've seen, cause you,

you blew up on tick tock, I think at a very early stage of the platform

early ish, maybe like 2021, right?

And like, you've seen it evolve quite a bit and has your offer of

placing people or like everything that you're kind of doing right now.

Like I'd love to hear how you've evolved the business with the platform.

Cause you

mentioned it's completely bro, completely.

I mean, dude, when we first started, when we started doing this in 2021, it was

like TikTok was the coolest place to be.

It was like the most relevant.

It was also where there was the most opportunity for brands and for creators.

So it was just like everybody, it almost felt like everybody was hanging out

in the same playground and just like seeing what everybody else is doing.

So to be a TikTok creator for a brand was something that everybody

was interested in as a creator.

They're like, I can make extra income.

It's not a necessarily a full time thing where I'm like doing a nine to five.

I'm really good at making videos.

TikTok is easier.

So I just think the, the like, Not ease, but just like the opportunity

was so much more accessible.

So we were placing like 20 creators a month and it was just like this.

And they were fitting and the brands were stoked on them and

the creators were stoked on them.

The challenge I think is, I don't control any algorithms.

I don't know, I don't want to be every single day being the person that

knows exactly how the algorithm works.

I understand the framework, I understand what you need to do

to be able to do it sustainably.

And I think the, the things that we've had to correct is expectations with companies.

Because I think that a lot of companies saw what success was

happening with brands like Poppy.

Yeah.

And they were like, if this creator doesn't come in and get us a 50 million

viewed video, they're not doing it right.

Their first shot.

Exactly.

For me, I think the expectations is really like the, the thing that I've had

to have conversations with brands on.

Yeah.

And, and then just like being willing to offer new people, like

give you like that 90 day thing.

If they don't work, if you really aren't happy with this, I'm trying to,

when I have meetings with companies upfront, be like, What do you

really deem this successfully with?

And how do I like actually be real with you on what that

what's realistic with these guys?

I was

gonna say, how do you take it from like they're probably

pipe dream to let's be real here.

Like what is that?

What is that success

metric conversation for me?

It's like for me.

It's like the way that I look at now.

I actually think it's really hard for a creator to come in and completely

change the landscape of the business.

No doubt.

I don't think it's easy to do that anymore.

No.

So for me, the way I look at it now is I'm like.

I still do think that for companies that don't know how to make content

and are just going to agencies, but the agency doesn't know the brand,

so they can't really tell the brand story or they're not around the team.

They don't understand the culture.

I still do think it's a really viable and smart option to have a person come

in that becomes part of the culture, can film events, can film behind

the scenes, can do product stuff.

So I still think it's impactful.

It's just like, it's just like, honestly, when I'm with companies, I'm like,

honestly, Unfortunately, it's just not going to be the person that's going

to make or break it for your brand.

So you can't put that pressure on them.

Still beneficial, just less of like a home run.

Would

you rather build a creative team around the founder or creator?

Founder.

Founder?

Yeah,

agree.

Creator, I think is, it depends.

I think founder, if it's somebody that you can just, if it's somebody

that has an interest in it, that has a unique story, that you can film

easily with, then I think it's great.

If it's like pulling teeth with them, then I think it's harder.

But I also think creator, building a business around a creator is really hard,

especially if the creator has to create.

Because dude, think about like all of these creator businesses that are

completely stopping, just like done, no interest in doing this anymore.

Because the creator is the marketer and the operator, or

even if they're just the marketer.

All of it relying on a, on a single creator is just a

very, for me, I look at it.

I'm like, that's a hard business model.

It's a great business model to spark it.

I think it's a great business model to spark it.

But if that's like the long lasting marketing behind it, then

I think it's a real challenge

for a founder.

So to give context, I have a media company called marketing examine.

And the thing that we're doing now is like, we're going all in on just

organic content, shut off paid.

I just feel like, or my belief is it's more impactful to get organic subscribers

for our newsletter versus paid.

Right.

What team should I build around me to amplify essentially my organic content?

Because I'm doing scripting, recording, editing.

Cranking that shit out on the daily.

And obviously we have a team for the pod and the YouTube and like, especially

the bigger pillars, but on the short form side, what, who do you think

I should build or bring in around

me?

What do you feel like the challenges are right now?

I script, I edit research like that.

Yeah.

Do you feel like that is, so for me, I look at that as like.

There's no way a human being, I would put myself up there with

people that create content and enjoy it and like really get passionate.

I literally can't come up with new ideas every single day.

Yeah.

It's hard.

It's not, it's not possible.

Yeah.

So I do think that like doing things like a podcast or doing things like

where you're just talking, you're documenting more than actually trying

to create something is impactful, but I would say also that would be something

that I would really be looking for.

That's something that I feel like I will look for.

of like, I don't even know what the role is, like idea

generator or research assistant.

Can I buy the idea generation and scripting?

I feel like that's where it'd be.

We've got lights out.

Yeah,

that's the new JD, the new job.

Here's

the seven short form video editing agencies is like drop shipping right now.

Yeah.

And I know that because I've been, I'm looking for different editors and

I'm like, dude, I'm in discords right now with like 8, 000 kids that are

cranking out edits, like speed runs.

And they're like, I'm just like slanging edits for people.

So I know that there's, I get an email pretty much every other day.

Are you looking for a short form video editing agency?

So I'm like, okay, this is something that's happening.

There's tons of people that will do it.

Editing styles will always change.

Like these, like faster paced edits were not a thing two years ago.

Yeah, they were not a thing before on tick tock.

Now that's a thing or the

AI voiceover, right?

I mean, how long is that?

How long is that

voice going to last?

So it just always changes.

So for me, I'm like, I, I have no interest in like trying to find somebody that

just does this specific style for today.

It's more like, how do I find somebody that I actually want to work with?

That can keep adapting.

So I would find somebody like that to do video.

Copywriting is something that I think is going to be really a need for creators

and companies because I think you can take the copy, same with scripting like

you were just saying, you can take the copy and hand that off to a video editor,

hand that off to a producer, hand that off to somebody that can come up with a

shot list, hand that off to you and you get visuals as to how the video works.

But I think the actual scripting It's harder to find somebody that can get

that than it is to find somebody that can do the video edits right now.

Yeah.

Like, I would be putting more time into how do I find a copywriter

that can really dial in on this and even maybe give examples of

visuals to go over top of the copy.

And then hand that off to an editor and a producer that's

like, yo, we got to go shoot this.

And then I'm going to hand it to the editor and he's going

to find visuals for that.

I do think copywriters are going to be the next thing.

Because they're copywriters were the thing 20, 30 years ago, right?

With, direct, direct mail, email, et cetera.

Yeah.

And now with AI, we think it's okay.

Now I can become a creator because I could crank out 30 videos.

AI writes my scripts, but there's no personality reads like a robot.

And now if you have a good copywriter, You could stand out like this.

That's how you can create distinction is if your scripts Have a little

bit of personality, a little bit of story, a little bit of you in it.

Yeah.

Crazy.

Yeah.

A little bit of sauce.

I think the, whenever you go to like these, whenever you go to like

an agency that knows how to do the content and has like a formula and

the formula is based off of virality.

The way that I look at that is like.

I actually feel like a lot of people that I follow on all these platforms.

The reason why I follow them is they're different.

They go against the grain.

They're different.

They stand out when a lot of things are going viral, they stand out.

And so I actually feel like you were just saying with copywriter.

Not somebody that understands how to go viral on LinkedIn.

Somebody that understands your voice.

And how to help you put your voice.

That's the way that I would look at it.

Those people to me are really valuable because you're right.

People can go into AI, write me a LinkedIn thing.

Have it have a hook.

Have it have a call to action.

Have, you know, that kind of thing.

Somebody that is like, I understand how you speak with your tone.

And I'll form it in that way.

That to me is really intriguing.

It's

part of a bigger trend of like the cost of information is going to zero.

You know, like everything is on the internet.

You can learn anything on YouTube.

You can learn anything on Wikipedia.

Like there's so many free resources out there, but that's

the science to what you just said.

There's the hook.

There's the CTA, the body, like how you kind of like structure the

script, the actual art, which is the thing that'll make you differentiate

is, is that hook compelling?

Or is the body of the story good enough for someone to

pay attention for a long time?

I think those are the things that really do differentiate strong

creators and those who aren't.

Someone who crushes this really in your wheelhouse is Hans from your class.

Yeah.

So this guy took Alex's cut 30 class and dude, he does like interior

design, Instagram reels, and it's like.

I'm scrolling Instagram reels, and I see four straight videos

about viral content frameworks.

And I'm like, fuck this.

I don't care anymore, dude.

Like, I could write this in my sleep.

Like, if I didn't memorize it before, it's ingrained.

It's burned in my skull.

But now I, I swipe up again and it's like Hans and he's like,

how do you feel about this?

Like L shaped couch in this mid century modern home.

And I'm like, Oh fuck.

Yeah.

Like give me, you know, give me a little more of that.

Put a mirror here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I'm like starting to like get my gears turning about like it breaks the pattern.

Right.

It's like, you're so used to seeing.

All of these just kind of to your point, the dropshipping angle of like,

everyone's got a short form editor.

Yeah.

You can get one in the Philippines for a thousand dollars.

Yes.

Like we all have them.

You know what I

mean?

For sure.

We're

all employed.

Yeah.

Shout out to you, Renji, my dog.

But, no, like it, it just, that's so commoditized.

We'll always.

Persist is authenticity and the ability to kind of, you know,

form your own personal brand.

Like what are

you known for?

That's it.

And that, and that even in itself, dude, everything that becomes, everything that

becomes trendy, it's almost like the, the, the soul of it gets a little bit confused.

And authenticity, I'm just going to go back to when TikTok was, was

first around when TikTok first came out and authenticity was the thing.

It was like actually being authentic and like, almost like carrying glass

and just being like, I'm okay with, I love my, I'm happy with myself, so I'm

going to put this out into the world.

But then authenticity gets to be like.

Authenticity gets to be trendy and it becomes like, let's just be overly

vulnerable in the face of authenticity.

And so the word of authenticity gets changed a little bit.

What I think actually is really the most important thing is authenticity

in the original format of it.

Of just being, who are you actually?

Yeah.

What are you, what is the style that is actually you?

Yeah.

If you didn't look at anything on a short form feed on a LinkedIn feed,

and it was just you writing or just you creating, what would you create?

Not for.

The audience, not for the algorithm, like what is actually you?

And I think that that is what will stand the test of time.

Like almost like

your journal versus the script you're writing for everybody else.

For sure, because

all these formats are going to change.

Like the hook call to action did it because everybody's going to do it.

And then everybody's going to be like, Oh shit, all of them are doing it.

So what's the next thing?

And the only thing that'll last is actually like,

what is you?

Yeah, yeah.

The true enemy here is the course bros.

Because they're , they're the ones that are training everyone on the, for sure.

On the actual framework for sure.

it's, it always goes back.

Info product guys

the thing.

Yeah, it does.

The thing I think is coming back is cinematic or like being

actually nice shot content and things that are, are beautiful.

Also storytelling driven versus just straight tactical.

Definitely.

And I'm, and I'm, I do it too, right?

Like I do the tactical stuff as well.

Cause it funnels good to the newsletter, but I do think you're, the things that are

catching my eye on social right now are more or is content that is just beautiful.

Okay.

I got a good story to sound.

Yeah.

I do feel like cinematic is a thing right now.

Yeah.

I feel like people that aren't natural with cinematic might jump into cinematic

because it's the thing right now, but I think that those will be the same people

that when it goes away from cinematic, we'll jump onto the next thing there.

So I go, if it's not actually your natural thing to be.

Cinematic and you feel like you have to go out of your way every time that you're

going and doing something like that, you're going to burn out because the next

thing is going to come and you're going to be like, I got to jump on that thing

and then it's going to be hard for you.

And so I agree with you.

I think that that's a, if you're like, how do I get into culture?

I actually do think cinematic things catching my attention as well, but

I am weary of telling people go do cinematic right now because I

also try to look at like, what's the five year picture of this?

And if I'm telling everybody to go, it's the same.

It's a, it's the same thing as like a trend.

Yeah.

It's like if I'm telling people to go do that, will I tell 'em to go do the

next thing and the next thing and the next thing and the next thing rather

than like, how do you make your thing be the thing that cracks through?

Yeah.

Like if

cinematics not gonna be a part of your strategy and it's,

it was never even a thought.

Don't do it.

Just do it.

What's already part of your strategy.

Yes.

Interesting.

Okay.

A hundred percent.

Or if it's not too big of a take on fair.

If it's like, it's easy for me to do, I've got access to this.

It's just, I think that like really what everybody's playing in the game

of content, they're playing a game of wellness, but they don't think

about it, meaning content is not easy.

You're putting yourself out there, you're having to come up with ideas,

you're having to network, you're having to do relationships, like it's

a very like wellness oriented thing.

If you don't treat it like that and you just jump on things and you actually,

what ends up happening is you end up losing yourself in two years, you're

done, you're not going to be around anymore, and I think we're going to

see a lot of creators that end up not, end up being like, I'm over this.

Because they forget about what they actually care about

and burn out.

I think we have a lot of folks in our audience who are entrepreneurial,

like trying to start their own thing and understand the value of

content, but probably struggle with it not feeling natural to them.

So like something I would love to ask you is like, what is your advice to

someone who's trying to make content?

But it doesn't feel natural.

It's not something that they have this burning desire to do.

For me, it's always like, focus on like, what is your why?

Like, why do you actually want to do this?

Because, If you don't actually have the burning desire to do it, I'd

be like, well, why do you then?

Like, actually, because if it's a money thing, it, dude, shit is hard.

Business is hard.

Content

is hard.

The only pushback I would say there is I think there's a lot of people Who

maybe watch MFM, My First Million, and they watch a lot of these different like

business creators, maybe the Morning Brew guys, maybe like all these guys who kind

of built maybe a 200 to 500, 000 person audience on Twitter and have now been

able to really effectively monetize it.

And so there is this new understanding of the business case for creating content.

It's kind of the best means of

distribution of your ideas.

My thing is just.

Is, is that a big enough why to get you through the times

that are really hard about it?

Because if that is, some people are actually genuinely driven by money.

That's not a bad thing.

Right.

That's okay.

If that's what your thing is.

I love that.

Yeah.

It's, you have to ask yourself when there's moments where there's no traction,

when there's moments when I am creatively in a rut, when there's moments where

people get pushback on things that I post, it is that why strong enough for me to

be like, I don't care about that because I know that I know where I'm going.

Yeah.

If that's the case.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Thanks.

For sure.

Do

it.

I think it's almost like that thought of, Do you want to be a YouTuber?

Or do you want to make YouTube videos?

And there's a big difference between that question.

Do you want to be just a guy that's increasing his subscriber count?

Or just loves filming videos and loves editing?

Yeah.

Right?

And there's such a difference there in that creator.

Yeah.

And their longevity of being able to do it for five years versus

Five weeks.

Yeah.

Cause I think we'll do both.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The best I think we'll be able to be like, I do this because I love it and I've

found a way to turn it into a business.

And I also love

that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's something we've all probably experienced with that coming back to

being athletes is like the best people, the ones who actually make it are

like, yeah, they have that insane work ethic, but they also were naturally

insanely talented and athletic.

And it's kind of the same thing.

If you want to create videos, that is a huge leg up.

'cause then you just have to apply the work

ethic for sure.

dude, I actually, I don't think I talk enough about creating

content as also takes talent.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

like, I, I and I, and I, I really feel like I didn't e emphasize that

on a, on emphasize on that a lot in the beginning of TikTok because I

really think that it was so good that people were just putting themselves

out there and finding success with it.

But I think anything that is easy like that, the barrier

to entry zero, have a phone.

Yeah.

Anything that is like that everybody goes and does.

Yeah.

So now that everybody's gone and done it.

It actually does require a little bit of talent that I think that

people overstate a little bit.

They're like, I got the framework and I got, and I got good editors.

So this is going to work for me.

And I think that the, like the way that I look at the talent,

I was like, do you have things that people want to hear about?

Do you have things that people want to listen to?

And can you be real and authentic with

it?

Yeah, I think you see that a lot with, you're familiar obviously

with UGC creators quite a bit.

Like they user generated content, like the fake TikToks.

but you know, if you're a bad TikToker, you make UGC.

And so like, I think, you know, with, with those folks, like there

is a high end and a low end because they understand certain shot types.

They understand certain kind of call outs and things that make the video

feel more authentic and normal versus like really salesy and sponsored.

And you see that when you give different people briefs, you give the same

brief to several different creators.

You're going to get different results from those videos.

And that's exactly what you're talking about.

It's the talent component.

TikTok kind of lowered the barrier of entry.

I would say maybe that's what made it explosively gross and much because of

trends, lip syncing videos, dancing videos, like all the sort of kind of

content mediums that were really easy to just copy paste your own self into, you

know, those allowed for a lot of people to go viral and get a fake sort of feedback

loop that they might've been good at this.

And I think you see a lot of early TikTok creators who capitalize on that.

Really struggling now when the algorithm is not favoring on the same way.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

You summed it up perfectly.

Yeah.

And I, and I do, we're going to go through this because this isn't going away.

This is going to be a thing.

We're going to go through this where there's going to be new waves.

And then people will leave.

There'll be new ways.

I really think the way to just like last through all of it is to find

like, What do I actually care about?

What do I enjoy doing?

How do I, how do I like block out the noise?

Of like, what's the thing of the day?

And what do I need to jump onto in this moment?

And just be like, Dude, I know what I like and I'm going to stick to that.

Yeah.

How do you help people find that?

Like what the, their pillars and the things that they could talk about

repeatedly and over and over again and Essentially spin up and create

a thousand ideas from, from it.

Yeah.

Conversations.

Relationships, like I think it's, it's a, it's hard to scale.

It's the human shit.

Yeah.

It's like sitting with people.

If I, if it is a creator, that's like trying to understand how,

what they could be creating.

I literally, I'm like, what do you do in your day?

What's fun for you?

Yeah.

The easiest way for me to make content is to just be it for it to not be

deviating out of what my current day is.

So it's like, what do I, what am I already doing?

What are the things I love?

What are the things that if there was no cameras around, no mics around, I'd be

talking about, that's where I would start.

We, with a lot of the brands that I work with, I call it modular creative.

And so basically it's this concept that you can have one storyline with

a bunch of different components.

So say, you know, one of my clients is a water bottle with a, a portable

charger at the bottom of it.

It's like very tick tocky products.

They're sold nationally in AT& T stores, but they've never done DTC stuff.

They don't have a consumer marketing division that can do this stuff.

And so, you know, we talk about like, okay, what's a problem that your

end user is like commonly facing.

So someone who might want to use a water bottle with a charger is often going

to go to the gym and they might have forgotten to charge their AirPods before.

And so what's that pain point is?

I now don't have my AirPods like charged and I'm going to get a shitty workout

in because I don't have music and like that same problem of my AirPods are dead.

And now that I can carry my charger with the water bottle can be applied to the

gym, but it can also be applied to a walk.

It can be applied to a yoga class.

It can be applied to the airport.

And so, like, with that one sort of storyline and pain point, you can apply it

and, like, kind of multiply the amount of creative you can pull from that one idea.

I agree completely.

Yeah.

And I think that that's a thing that makes it easier on everybody.

I would pick, I would pick five storylines that I would consider series, and I

would do 10 iterations on each of them, even, even if one's a video, then the

next one's a carousel, the next one's a photo, the next one's an Instagram

story, like take one piece that is a pillar of you, of your business.

And turn that into as many things as possible because you also don't know

which one is going to hit, right?

Yeah, there's just there's just mushroom coffee brand rise superfoods.

Have you seen them

before?

Absolutely love what they've done Yeah, they're they said mushroom coffee brands.

That's a protein.

No mushroom coffee.

Oh, wait.

No, this is a different one Then I'm thinking of rise protein RYSE

no, this is rise is really big on Tik TOK.

Yeah.

R Y Z E, man.

We got to come up with some new fucking brands guys.

And both those companies are pumping like nine figures too.

Yeah.

but, no.

So like rise is a mushroom coffee.

And so like, tell me how the hell they got to this is like

the problem that they're solving.

But I have now seen seven different.

like demographics of creator talking about the same problem, which is that

rise somehow fixes your gut health so that you don't have bad breath.

Because it's a mushroom coffee.

So the way that the mushrooms interact with your gut microbiome

leads to you not having bad breath.

I've seen this with a old white guy.

I've seen it with a young Mexican dude.

Like all sorts of like different

combinations.

Organically about it or these are

paid?

This is their paid ads.

It's definitely like a dynamic ad set in Facebook where they're

like have all of these different.

It's the same script.

It's like, I always thought my bad breath was, you know, related to

me, but I actually found out it was just the coffee I was drinking.

Then I found rise and now it's kind of fixed that.

And they're testing so many demographics of persona to see like,

which one of these resonates most with who it's getting shown to.

And I think it's really fascinating how they do that because like, they've

done that with several different of these storylines or series.

Like we're talking about, they have like.

I always found this white film on my tongue, and I didn't realize it was

related to the coffee I was drinking.

Like, connecting these different relatable problems to this daily routine that a lot

of people have, and then positioning their product as something that could solve it.

I think

that that's, I'm glad that they're doing that because that's

the only way that you learn.

Yeah.

You can have the perfect plan, bro.

You can literally have the perfect, this is going to be tweaked, and this lighting.

You just don't know until you post

something.

You have no idea.

And they're just firing from the hip, dude.

They don't give a fuck.

I was about, you can say fuck on this podcast, but like,

they don't care as much.

What's changed from last week to this week?

Dude, I don't know.

So, you never know who's listening.

Bro, Zara's in the other room.

That's fair.

No, it's, it's like, it's interesting how the really big brands get

that there's, there's gotta be an opportunity to like help smaller brands

execute what the big brands can do.

Like that, the whole kind of democratization angle, that word's

kind of bad now because of crypto.

But like.

You know, democratizing the ability to use high level creative testing

could be like an interesting way to help a brand doing like three mil.

Cause like, why can't they do that now?

Because I don't think they have the resources to invest in it.

I think it does cost money.

Got it.

Honestly, like as someone who runs a business that produces

a lot of content, like.

It's hard to get that stuff, like to get a serious amount of creative

assets to somebody like 30 plus, like it's hard to do that for

under like 5k of the agency's cost.

And so, you know, I think you as a brand to afford someone for 10 to 15k

a month, like you're probably doing, you know, at least like 5 million in

revenue with like solid gross margins.

That eliminates like a huge amount of small DTC

entrepreneurs.

But then it goes back to what you were saying or where you just got to figure

out how you can angle a story multiple times and like find the different tweaks.

I think the best way and the best thing that kind of changed the, or shifted

the thought about that in my head was.

Virgil Abloh's 3 percent rule.

Yeah.

He was saying that today.

Yeah, where novelty is found at 3%, like changing something by 3%.

So if it's this, I could just change the cap and this coloring and now

we have an entirely new product.

And you could do that with content where it could either be the hook.

It could go from being very value based and tactical to now being story based.

The, just like, you can find all the small tweaks in something where one piece of

content can be 20 pieces of content that feel like 20 different stories that reach.

20 times or like 20 different audiences.

It doesn't have to be spoken to the same person, but it's all about how

you just change it a little bit.

Yeah.

Right.

Like that's all you need is like a little tweak to make something

completely novel.

Yeah.

I think the companies that are willing to.

Set aside ego of this needs to perform right away.

Yeah.

And just try it exactly like that.

We're going to come up with these different series, 3

percent different on every video.

Dude, you can, eventually you find something that works.

Yes.

Eventually you find something that works.

Yeah.

Like, it's a 100 percent success rate of every company that stuck with it and

was actually trying different things.

Worked for them and I think that people get stuck in that hump dude.

It's literally the same thing as January 1st Everybody goes to the gym.

Mm hmm.

Like now we're in February a lot of people have stopped because

it's not as easy as they Thought it was gonna be the people that stick

with it are gonna get into shape.

Yeah, it's the same thing What

okay, so you were early on tik tok and I think you got to see like an

explosion of attention on that platform There's a lot of different things

that have been coming out recently.

Obviously, Flip was kind of like this shopping, TikTok, scrollable feed.

are there any sort of platforms that are emerging that you think are

exciting or kind of those frontier marketing opportunities that are

out there that you've been seeing?

No, I say no, because I, this is the first time that I feel like I actually

have not had anything that I'm super excited about in the past couple of years.

I just feel like there's been so much new.

Yeah.

That it almost feels like I'm like, I don't even want, I don't even

want to see anything old is new now.

Yeah, exactly.

So I would say no, there's nothing that's really caught my eye.

I like flip.

I think flip is cool.

There's nothing that's really like caught my eye that I'm

like, this is going to be huge.

Apple Vision Pro.

Awesome.

Think of that.

But that's to me.

That's a couple.

That's not now.

Yeah, it's not to me.

The experience of checking it out is now nobody that I know is

going to go and actually like.

Set up businesses specifically around Apple vision pro today.

I do think that's an awesome product.

I haven't actually tried it yet, but I do think that it seems like it's a very cool

product and I know that is the future.

Yeah, I've

seen such a fascinating.

So, so my buddy cam, shout out cam bro.

But he, he runs this company called life cash.

And in 2015, Cam couldn't get anyone to take him seriously because it

was an AR experience driven app.

And so, like, AR was just not, you know, spatial computing, all these technologies,

they just weren't even remotely close to where they are now in 2015.

And so the in practice use of it was just hard to even fathom, right?

Like, Oh, I, when I put on a pair of glasses and can see a story about this,

like monument over here, it like pops up.

Cause I touch it.

Like, no, it wasn't something that people thought about.

And then now you see, you know, there's a device called magic leap, which is, I

think Qualcomm makes that like, there's the, Gus is apparently not a fan.

but there's, there's like the Ray Bans glasses by meta, like.

Obviously the vision pro is doing a lot to push this forward too.

and it's just fascinating how Cam's idea of life cash is now really taken off.

It's crushing because demand and technology is meeting it where

they're meeting together finally because it just wasn't even viable.

That's the same thing happened with TikTok, right?

Like at the pandemic when it was, what was it musically back in the day?

And then during the pandemic, then the demand met.

This, this, essentially the app and that was then the rise of TikTok, right?

I

feel like if you're, if you're like really an innovator, yes, I do think that

spending time and doing something with Apple Vision Pro right now with like a

three year plan of in three years, people are going to be more adopted to this.

And then I'm going to have that.

To me, I'm not, I'm not the first person to do things.

Patagonia founder, Yvon Chouinard says, I'm not a inventor, I'm an innovator.

I feel like that.

I feel like I'm not the person that's going to go invent anything, but I

do feel like I see when something is on the press, on the, like the

verge of becoming a real thing.

And that's when I move.

Yeah.

To me, Apple Vision Pro is not there yet.

so when I feel like that, that's when I probably will make a move.

Switching scripts, one thing I thought that you said that was interesting

was this idea of creating series.

Essentially like bringing a TV show, but to someone's social feed.

That was something we did a lot at The Collective.

We always honed in on, it needs to be repeatable and scalable.

Right, like that was our thing, so we tweaked, and going back to the 3 percent

rule, we did something that was like, it was essentially like a truth or

not kind of, Show, right, where it was mostly around fitness and whatnot, and

then it elevated and it switched to it.

Like we got, we had, it gained some traction and then we wanted to

find the alternate version of it.

So we spun up Cold Hard Truth.

I don't know if you've seen that, but it was like, we would take a Cody

Sanchez, we'd take a Jamar Chase, put them in the cold plunge and ask them

questions, and it was like five minutes.

And that was one of our best content series, but it was so easy to film, and

it was such a pillar piece of our content.

And again, it was because we thought about it from the lens of repeatable

and scalable, and something that if we left tomorrow, they can continue doing.

Why do you think series works?

Or like, what is your thought behind a series if a brand wants to get started?

Like, why should they think about creating a series or implementing

that into their strategy?

Making a series is important because people want

something to follow along with.

Trends are one and done.

You see it.

You understand it.

Move on to the next.

Series, when you see it and it says part one, or you know that it

could be sequential, like there's a title of, this is the series, what

was the one you just called it?

yeah, Cold Hard Truth.

You're like, oh, this isn't just a single video.

There's probably more of this.

Now I'm going to go to the page and I'm going to look for those other ones

because I liked this one and if they like another one of them then they're like

I'm hooked now I want to follow this.

So I just feel like it's it's getting people to it's getting people on board

with the mission it's getting people on board with something that they

actually can feel like they're a part of.

It's kind of hard to feel a part of a one off video.

So that's why I think, the Founders story is a good series.

I think coming up with those, I loved what you just said of it being, that was

the easiest thing for you guys to shoot.

You could shoot it in five minutes.

Yeah.

To me, I'm like, that's, that is my idea of a genius series.

Yeah.

Because it's easy on everybody.

It's impactful where people will actually watch it.

And like, you want to keep doing it again.

I think the things that are, I look at it from, I really look at it

from like a, Almost like a physical lens of like, how much of a toll is

this going to take on me to do this?

Me, my team, the people that are involved.

I think the ones that are like really big undertakings are ones

that should be done more sporadically or batched and then big breaks.

Whereas little ones like that, that's one you can do every day.

If that still has the same impact, I'm like, yo, that one's a smart one.

But it gives people something to follow along.

That

one's good too, because I think something that's a tenet

of a successful content series is familiarity and cultural context.

Like when I'm seeing that ice bath series, and for me, you

know, I'm a fan of collective.

Maybe I have seen Kevin Hart's cold as balls, which was right.

It was kind of like an inspiration for it.

And like, that's a series where Kevin Hart will interview like Blake

Griffin and ask him funny questions.

Yeah.

And, you know, y'all did something very similar where it's like Jamar chase,

like, who would you rather throw to you?

Like, you know, or, or who's better you or Justin Jefferson.

And he's literally like freezing, like unable to answer the question.

and, you know, incorporating some sort of like familiarity is a really good

way to stop someone's scroll, I think, because there's got to be something

in the brain that just causes them to like, want to see it to like, Oh, it's,

you know, that's that slot machine feel like I'm spinning the slot machine

and will I get a different result?

And, you know, if there is familiarity, you're almost curious, like, okay, so

what's, what's in it for me this time?

Like, I liked this before.

Okay, maybe they have another good thing for me.

And that was our thought too, was like, we, we were looking at what's,

what's working on YouTube that has a good retention and watch time that then we

can mimic and recreate for short form.

Because if it's working and it's a 12 minute episode, we can do it on

short form and make it 30 seconds.

And it's definitely going to hit.

That was my entire thought process.

Super smart.

Something that feels like an opportunity that, you know, people could

look at for, next, next wave of like content ideas is, you know, obviously

like Nike, or not Nike, Abercrombie's done really well by Almost retroing

themselves like they made, you know, the nineties aesthetic come back through their

clothes and there's got to be so many familiar Content things that we all saw

as kids that now as our generation is like maturing into consumers You could put that

3 percent rule on some of that content from the 90s like there's freaking magic

school bus comes to mind, you know, just

like Nostalgia is a big player now, right?

Nostalgia is a big play, even I noticed myself being intrigued with nostalgia.

I think it's a big play.

I think Poppy has done a good job of that, of like, brighter colors and

like, they even do some different older style vintage looking kind of shoots.

I think nostalgia is a big play.

I think that's a huge play.

Have you

integrated it into

your content at all?

Not really, like I mean I'll mess around with things of like filming

on different cameras or like shooting photos with different cameras.

But yeah, doing like

a handheld or something like a handheld

cam or something.

photo though, not VHS.

Yeah.

On film.

Yeah.

But dude, honestly, again, for me, it's like I, I do these

little, I do these little tests.

To see how things feel because I'm, I'm like a tinkerer.

Like I like trying things just to see, like, is this

something I would like to do?

Is this something I use pretty much every time it comes back to like, what

is something that I'll do every day?

That's easy.

And like, for me, it's usually iPhone or it's now I'm like getting a little

bit more comfortable with just clicking record on a camera, but it's anything

that goes too far left field for me, I end up doing it a couple of times.

And then I'm like, not going to keep doing that.

Something I'm curious to get your opinion about is

like the future of brand deals.

So I think brand deals are, you know, maybe misaligned economics, at least

they were in the past, like all that time a creator will charge, you know,

50, 000 upfront fee for something where the brand is really going to

struggle to make 40, on that post.

and I'm curious if you think that's going to continue to like become

more performance based or do you think it'll kind of stay the way it

is?

I don't know if it'll become more performance based because some of the

people that you're working with as talent, it's, the goal is not conversions.

The goal is to be associated with that human being.

Yeah.

And so I do think that there's a, a component of it where it's like, we

don't, yes, we want this to convert.

We think it will convert, but even just us being in their,

world of them holding the product.

Is like a net win for us.

Yeah.

So I would say for partnerships, I'd say, how do you find those people that

you are so aligned with them and their audience that, you know, it's a win,

even if it doesn't perform immediately.

It also could be some people see the product and it takes five or

six different more touch points for them to get there that started it,

but that wasn't what converted them.

The second thing that I think is super underrated is micro influencers that have

engaged audiences, but doing that at, I hate using the word scale, but doing

that as much as you can, doing that as much as you can, because that's another

thing that, and I referenced pop because it's the band brand that I know the

most that I have seen their playbook.

They did.

My sister had to send out like.

50 different cases a week to people just getting product out there, seeding,

seeding product and trusting the product.

You have to actually trust in your product then because you're like, they might not,

they might not buy this or they might not post this, but it's them having it,

caring about it and advocating for it.

So I would say the smaller micro is like a really great play.

I think micro influencers.

I think typically are really looked at in their friend group

as like somebody that's tapped in.

Whereas I even think that some macro influencers in their

friend group, it's almost like.

It's almost like you're so big that you're moved and you're like untouchable.

Yeah, you're clearly

getting paid for this.

Yes,

exactly.

Exactly.

So I think the micro is like a really smart play that people

don't take advantage of enough.

And I think micro is changing too, where now it was, you know, I'm, I'm

finding the, the mom who's a foodie.

And now it's like, I'm finding the mom who's a foodie with

two kids and lives in Arizona.

Like it's going from somebody that's.

Has 5, 000 followers to now 2, 000 followers and like just

reaches a certain demographic.

That's right.

That's something I've been studying a lot lately that I think

is shifting.

That's cool.

Yeah.

Yo, here's another thing.

I'm almost like, why don't you go through people that have purchased your product

and like hit them up that are actual just customers, aren't even influencers and

be like, yo, if we send you 10 cases, will you just give them to your friends?

Yeah.

We know that you bought this.

Just give it out to people.

Yeah.

It's like rather than you being the person that has to go and do the samplings.

And get it out into the world.

Your customers already care about it.

You know that they care about it.

It's different than some influencers that you don't know

if they care about it or not.

But you hope that they do.

This is a paying customer.

Send them 10 cases and be like, yo, do you think that if we gave you these 10,

you would hand them out to your community?

I feel like that's an underrated play.

Yeah, I mean, it's too

simple for marketers, right?

We have to find the crazy strategies.

For sure.

Wait, what do you mean talk to customers and they'll just talk to their friends?

Yeah, no fucking way.

Yeah, totally.

That's not a meta campaign.

Turns

out a good product sells itself.

I think, like loyalty is certainly like a frontier that I don't think has

been figured out by a lot of brands.

You know, like there's obviously the MLM world is the king of this, right?

Or it's like you give one, you know, suburban family, a bunch of like Herbalife

things, and they'll give them like seven.

It's like spreads like a weed and everyone's just like hooked.

But, Like more, more brands could learn from that.

Right.

It's like, okay, there should be an email flow where if someone has purchased

twice, you're triggering an offer to them and saying, you know, give away a case.

And we got one on the house for you to show us proof of

you giving it to a friend.

Yeah.

Like that.

Yeah.

And like, that's Without a doubt, a way to create a word of mouth flywheel

that will do so much better than going to send it to like 25 different micro

influencers who might not post your shit.

The content they post is just

terrible.

So a role that I think is super important at companies that is so underrated

is this like glue of the community.

Like, can you have somebody that truly just cares about the community, doesn't

have any sort of KPIs, it's just like Go out there and make the people that

care about us, love us more, care about them, get more people interested in it.

And like, that will be a, if you look at it over a couple of years,

that will be a enormous part of our business, but it's hard to track.

And I think every company is like, how do we quantify this?

Yeah.

You can't quantify emotional buy in, you know, and I think that that's

a huge part that I think a lot of companies that do loyalty well, they

have that, they have emotional buy in from the people that they're selling to.

Yeah.

And that for me, if I had a consumer brand, I would be like, yo, I want

to hire somebody that's a diehard of the brand, loves the product.

And literally just be like, yo, go make friends.

Take our product, go hand it out to people on the street.

Go to the people that have purchased our product.

Send them, don't even send them, don't even put them into an email funnel.

Send them a DM and be like, yo.

Say it like that too, yo.

Saw you purchased our product, I'm gonna send you 10 cases.

Will you just hit it, hit other people up and pass it out?

Like, human interactions.

I think that's the

way to win.

I always talk about like, you gotta have that person that's

learning how, or taking advantage of turning followers into friends.

Literally what you're saying.

Like, there is that transition.

And you need to have someone that knows how to make that transition

through in real life events, just surprise and delight, like whatever

it is, they need to be dedicated to

that.

Yeah, agreed completely.

Yeah, completely agreed.

It's, I had a buddy who started this, you know,

software platform for creatives.

Actually, you might find this interesting.

It was like kind of like a digital portfolio to take credit for your work.

So say you're like a sports creative.

And, you know, the University of Georgia, like, walk out FP, FPV drone.

Yeah.

sorry, Brian.

I know you're nice with the cameras, but I'm not, but, so you're the

guy who like created that piece of content, University of Georgia posted

on Twitter and they don't tag you.

Okay.

Fuck me.

Like no one has any attribution that that video is my big moment.

Yeah.

And so like that might get, you know, 20, 000 likes and like

a ton of engagement go viral.

There was no way to claim that.

And so he kind of created a way to claim your work as a creative.

and in doing so, you know, obviously the community really rallied around

him and they appreciated the tool.

And at first he had this, person who was just the community

manager and she would just.

All day on Twitter, just like make sure, Hey, do you tag this on gondola?

Like tag it on gondola.

Like she was just so instrumental in getting them.

And they went like zero to 10, 000 users like that, you know?

And it was super organic.

It was like in combat.

Right.

And as soon as she ended up having to.

She ended up having to take another role and she had to go, make a career pivot.

And so he kind of looked at more of a, performance marketing, like, like

let's run ads, you know, with targeted messaging about this is the best

portfolio for creatives, take credit for your work, all sorts of stuff.

And it didn't really work, you know, and there is an element

sometimes of like a product has to be communicated in the right way, which

can need to be coming from a friend.

And not necessarily seeing it in an ad and just press and go.

Exactly what you were just saying of hand to hand combat.

I think that's the thing that most companies are missing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like the personality within the company.

I understand it.

I understand that when you're building, everything needs to be measurable.

And the things that aren't.

Yeah.

But I also know as a consumer, I fuck with brands because I had a DM with that

customer service person or the person that ran their social and they seemed awesome.

Yeah.

And now I care about that brand more.

Yeah.

The human quality, the human like actual relationship that you build

with the brand is something that I think it's, again, you can't scale it.

It's not like you can be like, let's outsource this to the Philippines.

It needs to be somebody that actually cares.

It actually is like bought in.

Yeah.

But I really think that that's how you break through.

I really do.

Agreed.

It's kind of the challenge with a lot of these brands is they don't like,

that's resources, you know, they're deciding where to allocate resources.

And if you're thinking about, you know, social media manager, is that a creator?

Is that a copywriter and a content scheduler and an editor?

Like it's a lot of different roles in one.

And you're trying to pay this person's like 70K a year.

For sure.

You know, and same with community manager.

I don't think that's typically.

someone that gets paid a lot.

And so it's hard to attract the right type of talent, keep the right type

of talent if you're going to have that kind of orientation towards it.

So it might be something that people need to allocate more dollars to as well.

Well, I think the whole business model is broken of like, let's

build this super fast and as lean as possible and not prioritize people.

And I think that there's a correction going on right now.

And I think that the next model will be like, If we can't employ

somebody that can go into the community and do these human things.

Like our business is not working.

That has to be a core part of the business.

And if we need to build slower, and we can't, we can't meet the expectations of

an investor, then we need to change this, and we need to actually build slower.

Because I feel like that's a core part of it.

And I feel like the sustainability of content is a core part of it

too.

Yeah, less dollars to meta, more dollars to the

community.

Dude, wrapping up, what are what are some of the brands

you're paying attention to?

That's great.

What are some of the brands that you're paying attention to, and kind of

what are they doing tactically that's worth paying attention to as well?

Any brands that I feel, I feel like, honestly, more creators, I feel like.

Okay, who are some of the creators then?

You guys, I think Orin I think I like, I like Kane a lot.

Yeah.

I think I like Roberto a lot.

I think I, there's some smaller ones, Death to Stock.

they do a lot of different like trends around or not even trends.

They do a lot of like things that they're seeing within the

world and talking about it.

So, I look, I would say I'm looking more at creators.

They're, they're, yeah, I, and I say this kindly, there really has not

been a brand in the last year or so that's been super intriguing to me.

Yeah.

And I spent a lot of time in the brand world.

It just is, it feels like oversaturated.

It feels like I need a moment of like not paying attention to all the new and

then going back into it and being like.

Okay, cool.

What do I actually care about to me right now?

The brands that I think are intriguing, if there were any is actually.

Brands that I think are doing a good job in terms of people like the

product and they're in bigger stores, but haven't told their story yet.

And so I'm intrigued on like, can we try and help them tell their story?

Like a brand like unreal, the, have you seen the chocolate, unreal chocolates,

like Reese's peanut butter cups.

They do like an almond joy.

It's like better for you.

Chocolate.

Like to me, I'm like, they're a brand that I like.

I've been consuming them for a while.

I just don't know anything about the brand, but I know that they're doing well.

I know that people use them and are fans of the brand.

To me, I look, I'm looking at brands like that and being like, how do

we get them to be more understood of like their story and what their

actual legacy is of their mission.

rather than like, what's the new product of the day?

I

think there's, there's a few companies, you know, the companies

that are innovating in this right now, like you mentioned rise, the

protein powder earlier, R Y S E, you know, they crushed on TikTok shop.

And, like, That's where you're seeing a lot of brands that understand content in

a super authentic way, doing really well.

There's this guy, gosh, dude, I wish I could remember his name.

Pop daddy snacks guy.

and, he's, he's what a name.

Yeah.

Yeah.

pop daddy, pop daddy.

but he's got like this, flavored popcorn.

Right.

And so his entire content angle.

It's sort of like him packing orders in the warehouse and just showing, he's

like, you know, we have all these flavors, like, check this out, check this out.

And you know, it's unpacking orders on the, on the American entrepreneur,

like rally behind the type of stuff.

And.

I think it's really relatable and it's flying off.

He's the number one food brand

on TikTok.

TikTok shop, I'm watching a lot.

I do think that that's a play.

If there was one like techy thing that I'm like, you might spend time here

and get some like real opportunity.

That would be it.

I just am not spending as much time there because a lot of the brands that we're

working with, it's not a play for them.

Yeah.

But I do think that TikTok shop is something, especially for

smaller businesses to go play in.

Yeah.

Well, dude, I appreciate you coming through, especially with all this weather.

I know this isn't the norm here, but.

Yeah, I appreciate you coming through.

That was a phenomenal conversation.

I know we could go for another hour arm out here in la.

Yeah.

But dude, damn.

Thanks for being here, man.

And bro, where can they find you?

Where

can everybody find you?

Yeah, everything is at JT Barnett.

J-T-B-A-R-N-E-T-T on all platforms.

So, and your company as well?

And you?

You?

Yeah, barnett barnet x.com.

Barnett x.com.

Yeah.

Nice.

Awesome.

Well, thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you

brother.

And you know, you can always find us.

Sweat Equity Pod on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music.

as usual, if you leave a review, like and subscribe.

We will do a growth playbook for you on the next episode.

sometimes we got to talk to a guy like JT, but on the next one where

it's just Alex and I, we're going to pick a listener and try and do that.

So, please leave a review.

Five stars if you like it.

And, yeah, we'll catch y'all next week.